February 2021 – HOA Constitutional Government

CAI Manifesto – white paper

{Originally published in 2016].

This CAI ‘white paper’ cements the position that CAI is the sole competent voice for HOA matters. For those who took the time to read all four of these papers, [note 1] what should stand out is the absence of any discussion of HOAs as de facto private governments, as de facto political entities, or as quasi or mini governments both of which imply a political entity. The reason why the authors of these papers, the elitist would be Philosopher Kings, cannot address the question of violations of the Constitution is that they would be “Defending the Indefensible.”

So, as expected of politically motivated actors, ignoring the controversy makes it go away, especially when there’s only one voice of any merit and strength. Facts that are inconsistent with the views of CAI are dogmatically dismissed and ignored. And to this end CAI has been very successful with respect to state legislatures and the cooperating media.

“For more than 40 years, CAI has educated, advocated, published and informed people living and working in common-interest communities. Thanks to those ongoing efforts, we have a strong and valuable understanding of community associations today.”[note 2]

CAI will use these papers to further indoctrinate the legislators, the media and the public that CAI is the only competent, informed, knowledgeable, educational and credentialed organization with 40 years’ experience to conduct HOA affairs and to deal with HOA issues. “Homeowner rights advocates” are ignored and dismissed as an opposition movement. Instead, following the lead of Arizona Rep. Ugenti who in 2013 made the following statement to the Arizona Government Committee:

Ugenti stated that each year there was “a plethora of personal HOA legislation” and tried “to spare the [committee] members the constant agony of many personal pieces of HOA legislation,” as contrasted to the industry legislation. (See video of Ugenti speech here https://youtu.be/REt_TJD-6UQ).

CAI speaks only of “individual constituents” and “isolate incidents” that do not measure up to a policy that the legislature could act on[note 3] (my emphasis):

“Lawmakers have been, and will continue to be, called upon to address concerns expressed by individual constituents who share an isolated incident that has made them unhappy with their community associations. In an effort to help constituents, lawmakers may introduce legislation addressing association governance that may increase and undermine the well-established and proven model of community association governance.

“This trend is expected to continue as long as a legislative response is considered necessary to respond to negative perceptions produced by media out of lone circumstances. Legislative responses to individual constituents contribute to community associations being perceived as over-restrictive micro-governments focused on covenant enforcement. This perception may accelerate legislative efforts aimed at greater oversight of community association governance and require greater transparency.”

They make an accurate assessment of conditions. This failure to present a unified national voice backed by credential authorities will continue to persist into the future. If you stop CAI Central, you destroy all local CAI state chapters’ reason for being. They become just another self-serving special interest.

These papers also contain CAI attempts to influence other dominant organizations like AARP and NAR (National Assoc. of Realtors).[note 4] Furthermore, CAI calls for not only influencing legislatures, but the judges, too.[note 5]

References

[1] Links to these papers can be found on the CAI web page, Community Next: 2020 and Beyond(May 5, 2016).

[2] Id

[3] Supra, public policy link, p. 6.

[4] Supra. n. 1, external influences link, p. 4-5.

[5] Id, p. 13-14.

HOA Reformers needed to educate

[Selected commentaries are available as audio podcasts on SPOTIFY and GOOGLE PODCASTS. ]

HOA Reformers are needed as educators to spread the facts about HOA-Land to the public in general; especially to the legislators, the media, the HOA boards, and to the universities and high schools.

As HOA Reformers we must look past our mindset that placates our wants, needs, and fears. Wrongs must be righted; one nation undivided under the Constitution must be upheld. We must step out of the cave with its shadow reality and into the light {Plato allegory) to discover the realities of the HOA-Land culture. It is not an easy task to reject longtime beliefs but one that must be taken.

My Plan Toward Restoring the HOA Model of Governance called for both a systemic restructuring of the HOA legal scheme and the need to reorient the BODs and legislators. (View at https://tinyurl.com/sr27yq3). The long ignored and inexcusable questions of constitutionality that continue to harm members and the greater communities across this country must be exposed, understood, and accepted.

The Plan first requires addressing the attitudes and views of BODs, the members, and the public in general. The conditioning and indoctrination by the biased views of the national pro-HOA special interest entity must be de-conditioned by a program of reorientation. The commonly found guidelines of the special-interest, pro-HOA lobbyist speak to an authoritarian government with member interests and concerns being secondary to the survival of the association. It’s an unacceptable deviation from the intents and purposes of our constitutional government.

Listen to Commentaries on Spotify audio

Announcing selective commentaries are now available as audio podcasts of Spotify – must signup for free account. You can also listen on other podcasters – see below. Files range from 3 minutes to 15 minutes.

Just click on the Spotify button on the commentary page or add the RSS feed to your email browser under RSS Feeds. On the the commentary page, click on “Podcasts” in the left column or enter Podcasts under Search in the right column.

Here’s the link to use: https://anchor.fm/s/4e14861c/podcast/rss

Other Podcasters are available if you have an account. Go to Anchor website and choose Podcaster. You will probably need an account.

ANCHOR main — HOA Constitutional Government • A podcast on Anchor — ALL episodes and podcasters. Select under “Where to Listen.”

Spotify is available on your cell or tablet. Download the app and skip all the advertising and promotions nonsense, and click on “search” bottom at the bottom. In the Search box enter HOA constitutional government.

AZ free speech bill HB 2052 on track

The substantive Arizona homeowner reform bill, HB 2052, has been assigned to the Senate GOV committee. No hearing date has yet been assigned. In short,

“Overview Stipulates that a unit owner’s association or a planned community association (association) may not prohibit a unit owner or member (member) from peacefully assembling and using private or common elements of the community.”

See Arizona HB 2052 restores homeowner constitutional speech protections

Effective presence in support of legislation requires immediate support to the assigned committee to let the members know before the public hearing. It is this private committee time where decisions are made. This advice can be found in Colorado’s Morgan Carroll’ book and discussed in Colorado senator’s guide to effective HOA legislation.

Many may not remember Ugenti’s conduct in 2013 but I have the hope that justice will prevail for homeowner with 2052.

“The loss of these perceived benefits lies not in this victory, but in the acts of Rep. Ugenti who is responsible for attaching, at the last legislative session, her defeated HB 2371 to SB 1454. SB 1454 now became a bill with two subjects in violation of the constitution.”

Here are the committee’s email addresses. AZ Senate GOV committee 2021

Sonny Borrelli sborrelli@azleg.gov
Juan Mendez jmendez@azleg.gov
J.D. Mesnard jmensnard@azleg.gov
Jamescita Peshlakai jpeshlakai@azleg.gov
Warren Petersen wpetersen@azleg.gov
Martin Quezada mquezada@azleg.gov
Kelly Townsend, Vice-Chairman, ktownsend@azleg.gov
Michelle Ugenti-Rita, Chairman mugenti-rita@azleg.gov

Countrywide political culture cause of HOA reform failures

On this morning’s talk show, political discussion addressed the questions of the Republican Party policy of applying strong power in order to stay in office, and what is the percent of Trump supporters who are hard core followers – cultists. Will these dogmatic people remain loyal to Trump and to the Republican Party after the events at the Impeachment Trial?

Materials describing the growing trend toward authoritarianism[1] in America is well documented and reliable information can be found on the Internet.[2]

“There are some people [authoritarian followers] for whom the system of checks and balances are bothersome and annoying, and dislike the noise and chaos of democracy. . . . [Authoritarians] understand their role, which is to defend the leaders, however dishonest their statement, however great their corruption, and however disastrous their impact on ordinary people and institutions.”^[[3]

Talmon hits the nail on the head when he writes that “Citizens of a totalitarian democratic state, even when aware of their true powerlessness, may support their government.”[4]

In “Part 1, The Cultural Dynamics of HOA-Land” of my HOA-Land Nation,[5] I present my analysis of the forces at work dominating the politics within the HOA private government.

Basically, the HOA legal structure and scheme is authoritarian in nature: strong central power, limited political freedoms, no accountability, and under the rule of man, not law. The authoritarian nature of HOA-Land is masked by a thorough indoctrination that presents a false picture of the real estate subdivision as democratic, inappropriately named a community, simply because the members are allowed to vote, as meaningless as it is.

Getting back to HOA-Land, it becomes disturbing that the application of authoritarianism and totalitarian democracy philosophy seems to fit quite well. Too well at that! [6]

HOA Consultant

* * * *

The same dynamics at work in HOA-Land[7] are well evident in Impeachment Trial II of Donald J. Trump[8] and reveal the new political forces at work in all of America. The trial brief stated, among other things,

The only honorable path at that point was for President Trump to accept the results and concede his electoral defeat. Instead, he summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue. (p. 75).

By the day of the rally, President Trump had spent months using his bully pulpit to insist that the Joint Session of Congress was the final act of a vast plot to destroy America. As a result— and as had been widely reported—the crowd was armed, angry, and dangerous. (p.2).

President Trump has demonstrated beyond doubt that he will resort to any method to maintain or reassert his grip on power. A President who violently attacks the democratic process has no right to participate in it. Only after President Trump is held to account for his actions can the Nation move forward with unity of purpose and commitment to the Constitution. (p. 5).

* * * *

Today’s politicos are talking about a third party with Trump as its leader, mainly from Republicans. A Gallup survey[9] shows that there is no majority party in the US, counting Independents as a party: Republicans and Democrats are about 25% each and Independents now 50%. (In Nov. 2016 it was 27% Republicans, 30% Democrats and, 40% Independents).

It will be an interesting new US political scenery; what will happen who knows.

How many Republicans, government officials, and the general public supporters of Trump remain loyal after the events of the Day of Infamy, January 6, 2021? With Trump out of office, but able to run again, how much power will this authoritarian leader retain? It seems the Congress, the WH, and Americans in general need to examine their moral positions and ask themselves, Did I do right? Did I do the honorable thing for America?

Notes

[1] Authoritarianism: favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom..

[2] See in general: Anne Applebaum, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism, Doubleday (2020); Amanda Taub, “The rise of American authoritarianism,” Vox (March 1, 2016); Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarians, 2007.

[3] Id., Applebaum.

[4] J. L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy, Penguin Books (1986, first published 1952).

[5] George K. Staropoli, The HOA-Land Nation Within America, StarMan Press, 2019.

[6] George K. Staropoli, HOA political dynamics: totalitarian democracy (2019).

[7] HOA-Land is a collection of fragmented independent principalities within America, known in general as “HOAs,” that are separate local private governments not subject to the constitution, and that collectively constitute a nation within the United States. Latest estimate at this writing is that some 23% of Americans live in HOA-Land.

[8] Articles of Impeachment, H. RES. 24, (2021). See House_trial_brief ; Trump answer; House answer response.

[9] Party Affiliation, Gallup (Feb. 15, 2021.